While most of the pack opted for the soft or hard tyre for their opening runs, Alpine bucked the trend by choosing the medium. But it was Piastri who had set the pace on a soft-shod run by the halfway point of the session, the McLaren man going quickest on a lap of 1m 33.324s to put him four-tenths clear of team mate Norris with Fernando Alonso third for Aston Martin.

Verstappen, meanwhile, aborted his flying run after going wide and returned to the pits for some set-up changes to his Red Bull, while George Russell joined the action with 30 minutes left on the clock, the Briton having seemingly been content to wait for slightly cooler conditions to arrive.

HIGHLIGHTS: Relive the action from FP2 in Bahrain as Piastri sets the pace from Norris

There was trouble for Nico Hulkenberg as the German was forced to stop his Kick Sauber at Turn 8 after going into anti-stall, triggering the yellow flags before a brief Virtual Safety Car was called. As the green flags were thrown and the action picked up, Verstappen moved up to second despite another slightly wide moment out on track.

An unusual problem hit Leclerc as one of the Monegasque’s wing mirrors was seen flying off his Ferrari. Liam Lawson, meanwhile, was unhappy at being overtaken by Russell, the Racing Bulls driver telling his engineer that the move was “so annoying”.

Speaking of Russell, the Briton brought out the yellow flags for a moment following a spin at Turn 10 before going on to declare that the conditions offered the “least amount of grip” he had ever experienced in an F1 car.